The Soul of Civility by Alexandra Hudson

Author:Alexandra Hudson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Recognizing Difference and Equality: The Myth of Republican Etiquette?

Jefferson’s simplified diplomatic protocol was unpopular with foreign dignitaries, as Anthony Merry showed us. But domestic custodians of tradition and self-appointed etiquette experts also despised it. While serving as a confidant to Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War, De Benneville Randolph Keim gained intimate familiarity with the inner workings, rituals, and ceremonies that governed the United States government. In 1889, he published the definitive work on the topic, Hand-book of Official and Social Etiquette and Public Ceremonials at Washington. In this work, Keim took direct aim at Jefferson’s pell-mell etiquette, calling it “unjust and in bad taste.” Keim praised James Madison, who finally “put an end to the Jeffersonian code, and restored the dignified social institution of the American school of the administrations of Washington and Adams.”12

In his book, Keim left no aspect of life in America’s capital untouched. Rules about state dinners, the use of diplomatic titles, the proper distribution of personal calling cards, the appropriate means of mounting and dismounting a horse, and how to be a good conversationalist are all covered. Knowing his audience would be skeptical of a list of fusty etiquette rules, Keim addressed the elephant in the room from the outset. “There are many who deride food manners as antagonistic to the spirit of liberty,” he began. “And while it is not essential to imitate the forms of pageantry which invest royalty, it is possible to observe the recognized rules of decency, if not refinement and culture, without being aristocratic.”13

Keim argued that treating others with basic respect and decency was the culmination of our nation’s founding ideals of human equality. Our nation’s highest offices were open to all, not merely those of wealth or noble lineage. Practicing a basic civility with everyone—or “genuine politeness” instead of mere “splendor of outward forms”—was a way that we could live up to our ideals, and ensure the general welfare of society. By reviving the timeless principles of civility and deploying them toward those we meet, we can each live out our founding ideal of equality, too.

It is not empty gesticulations nor the blandishments of complimentary epithets that constitute good manners, but dignity tempered with freedom, reserve mingled with affability, and conversation softened with geniality and enlivened with wit.

—De Benneville Randolph Keim, nineteenth-century journalist and etiquette writer

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